Education Approach

Nothing is more important to a Head Start program’s success than what goes on in its classrooms. All programs strive for engaged, well-supported teaching staff and skilled educational coaches. At our partner programs, we focus on coaching and professional development, using structured, content-rich curriculum, and using focused assessments as key drivers of ECE success. Get started with our robust set of education tools by participating in a webinar or by becoming a Shine Assist partner today. Resources include:

Center Director as Educational Leader Rubric

Teacher Success Rubric

Coaching Success Criteria

Curriculum Plans: 12 themes, full-year

School Readiness Goals, assessment templates and alignments charts

Manage by Outcomes School Readiness Tracking Tool

...and much more.

Curriculum Resources

To develop a fully-support teaching staff, we have created a thorough, comprehensive set of lesson plans and activity guides for Head Start programs. We have also developed curriculum collaboration meeting materials to help teachers discuss strategies for effective implementation of the curriculum with their peers and to align each week’s content to specific school readiness goals and assessment objectives. These materials can have a game-changing effect in classrooms, giving teachers a robust support structure and the chance to focus their energies on differentiated instruction and making each lesson as effective as possible for each unique classroom environments. Sample resources include:

Full week-by-week lesson guides, including alignment with school readiness goals and assessment objectives

This webinar explores the components of content-rich curriculum and how a structured curriculum can allow teachers to focus on teacher-child interactions and differentiating instruction. Discusses the key strategies to building a professional learning community among teachers with an intense focus on effective curriculum implementation.

Coaching Resources

Ongoing coaching is essential to education staff and teachers' professional development. Our coaching model has two key elements:

The Teacher Success Rubric, which allows programs to rate teaching staff based on individual criteria along a "beginning" to "mastering" continuum, then and zero-in on opportunities for improvement.

Reflective coaching, which allows teachers, assistant teachers, and coaches themselves to reflect and evaluate on a regular basis to maintain professional development momentum throughout the year.

The power of having very clear expectations and a developmental path for teachers with a focus on the implementation process throughout the year.

Assessment Resources

Child assessment is a critical process that every Head Start program must master in order to understand whether or not their children are transitioning school-ready. Our Shine Focused Assessment model allows us to streamline the assessment process and integrate it more fully into the classroom experience. Sample assessment resources include:

How a focused approach to assessment--including reducing the number of items assessed, doing embedded and direct assessments, and building a professional learning community focused on how teachers use assessment data--can make pre-k assessment much more reliable and actionable.

This webinar explores the Manage By Outcomes Report, including how to develop outcome-based measures that capture your school readiness goals, how to use the data at the classroom and individual child level to help improve instruction.

Interested in full implementation of our education model? Shine Assist offers hand-in-glove support to a select number of programs in their pursuit of quality and excellence. Email info@shineearly.com for more information or to learn about becoming a partner.